Say it ain't so: Nelson Paint Co. throwing in the towel

[Chaos]

If anyone local to me wants Nelson paint while it lasts the Airgun shop near me has it.Sad to hear about this,that's all I've been using for the last couple years

[Jonnydread]

I think I've used that stuff before, it was pretty hard IIRC.

[Nish]

I always liked Nelson paint. As others have said it just wasn't available.

[MrBarraclough]

If you get a product into Wal-Mart, for example, basically they tell you how much they'll pay- stories abound of companies having to adjust and cut corners in order to make any kind of profit at what WM will pay.

The other thing is, if WM decides to pick up your product, you have to supply it. Meaning to thousands of stores, each needing X amount of product.

Yeah, by big box, I was referring more to Dick's, Academy, etc. Still possibly too big for Nelson to supply, but not the gargantuan scale of Walmart.

Not to digress too much, but your point about having to be able to supply all stores in a national chain is something I think a lot of people overlook when evaluating lesser known niche brands versus well known national brands carried by big national retailers. A small company could make the best damned widgets ever, and even make them cheaper than big name brand widgets, but if they don't have the capacity to put X units on the shelves of every single store in a chain then they aren't even considered by that chain. The big name recognized brands aren't necessarily the best, or even the cheapest, in their industry, they are the best/cheapest among the subset that can operate at that scale. The result being that for many, many product categories, the best options are often products that only insiders in the relevant community (industry, hobby, sport, etc.) are aware of. Masterlock is a perfect example. One of my erstwhile hobbies is lockpicking. Most Masterlocks are an absolute joke in terms of pick resistance.* Many models still have design flaws that have been known to the industry for decades that Masterlock doesn't bother to correct because it would make manufacturing marginally more expensive. But Masterlock has name recognition and the capacity to put the same locks on the shelves of every Home Depot, Walmart, and Lowe's on the planet, so they are ubiquitous.

*In all fairness, pick resistance is probably of less actual importance than most people would think, despite it being touted on the packaging of every lock ever. Lockpickers are naturally biased towards emphasizing it. The threat model for most locks you'd buy off the shelf at a big box store is centered around brute force attacks, which appears to be Masterlock's design priority. That does not, however, excuse vulnerability to low-skill bypass techniques, especially when effective countermeasures are well known.

[Magmoormaster]

Good. They were terrible for the industry. The way they would wholesale to random people so they could sell it out of their garage for $5 over wholesale price was detrimental to fields and stores. It's one of the main reasons you'd never see stores opt to distribute for them.

[coyote]

That dynamic was not unique to Nelson. Just about everyone I have ever known that lived near a factory describes the same Dynamic; SGW, APX, RPS. Those are just the examples players I know have used.

[MrBarraclough]

UPDATE: A glimmer of hope.

Made it out to the field last weekend, bringing along about 3 cases of paint just in case it was needed. The field had a pretty healthy supply of Anarchy then, having apparently bought whatever Nelson still had in inventory. And it shot quite well, certainly better than the G.I. and Empire I had brought. The field owner has been in touch with reps from both HK and Kore/G.I. about supplying the field and shipments of samples supposedly are on their way. Here's the interesting part: Nelson is not selling its encapsulation equipment, just using it for non-paintball products. Their forestry products business is very healthy and paintball is more of a sideline for them (and has been for a while). Because they're still using that production line, making the occasional run of paintballs is not all that difficult for them. It's mostly a matter of swapping out the dies and changing the fill material. So the word is that Nelson is reassessing their decision and might agree to produce paintballs for the field, depending on pricing and volume. Nothing is certain yet.

Side note: I brought Empire Heat, G.I. 1 star and 2 star, and some leftover Nelson Precision from early October that frankly I think was a crummy batch to begin with. The weather was grey, as in foggy, misty, and overcast, but mild and sticky (typical Alabama Gulf Coast "winter") with highs near 70F. One of those days when everything feels constantly damp and you have condensation on your barrel, both inside and out. The Empire Heat did okay. Not great, but okay. The G.I. 2 star shot like garbage, so much so that I didn't even try shooting any of the 1 star. After a couple of hours of playing with paint that at best could charitably be called mediocre, the case of Anarchy I bought at the field was a godsend. Stuff shot amazing compared to the G.I.

Funny and embarassing side note: I started with the G.I. 2 star and was shooting a Trilogy. I had to use a .678 LAPCO bore sizer, the smallest I own, to prevent roll-outs. Just as I was about to hit the field, I realized my hopper was only half full. Without thinking, I grabbed my ball hauler and topped my hopper off, not paying attention to the fact that my cousin had filled it with the greasy Precision that had been in my garage for 6 weeks. Nelson Precision is usually about .688/.689 and not especially tough. It quickly mixed in with the sub-.680 G.I. in my Rotor, and my Autococker then became a Super Soaker. I think I set a new personal record for the number of times I swabbed a barrel in a single game.

[wthomas333]

Been using Nelson when I could since the 90s. I’ve used up the last few cases of my Precision recently and was down to my last 1500 rounds or so of Anarchy. Have a half pod left from playing today. Normally I would have just shot it up and been done with it, but I brought this little bit home. Pretty sad.

[Jonnydread]

I hear that man, I saved a 10 rd tube of my last batch of Anarchy for nostalgic reasons. Thinking about encasing it in resin 🫠

[MrBarraclough]

FUTHER UPDATE:

In the (almost a) year since I last updated, I have been able to buy cases of Anarchy sporadically well into the summer, much to my surprise. I lost count of the "last" cases of Anarchy I bought. From what I was told by the field owner, he would occasionally get a call from Nelson saying they had a skid or two available and asking if he wanted it. My understanding is that Nelson will still do runs of paint as custom orders, but the customer has to pay up front and if quality isn't what you expect then you're just out of luck. The field owner isn't willing to regularly buy paint on those terms. But when someone else does, Nelson ends up with surplus from those production runs and they usually offer it to him.

So there's always at least some hope of getting your hands on some Anarchy again, if someone is willing to buy enough at once. If you know a field owner planning a big game or other event, maybe you can convince them to order a custom run of it.

[MrBarraclough]

Bought two more cases of Anarchy on 12/30/23, out of a dozen or so the field had. And to my even greater surprise, there was nearly a skid of Precision (Nelson's field/rental grade) available too. Hadn't seen that in about a year. Same story as before: someone else had commissioned a custom run of paint and Nelson offered the leftovers to SAPB. Shot great. Glad to get it whenever it comes available. Wish is was more regular.

[zinger565]

FUTHER UPDATE:

In the (almost a) year since I last updated, I have been able to buy cases of Anarchy sporadically well into the summer, much to my surprise. I lost count of the "last" cases of Anarchy I bought. From what I was told by the field owner, he would occasionally get a call from Nelson saying they had a skid or two available and asking if he wanted it. My understanding is that Nelson will still do runs of paint as custom orders, but the customer has to pay up front and if quality isn't what you expect then you're just out of luck. The field owner isn't willing to regularly buy paint on those terms. But when someone else does, Nelson ends up with surplus from those production runs and they usually offer it to him.

So there's always at least some hope of getting your hands on some Anarchy again, if someone is willing to buy enough at once. If you know a field owner planning a big game or other event, maybe you can convince them to order a custom run of it.

Oh man, that would be special. Especially if you've got a big game with a lot of players. That's a tough sell though, as it seems a lot of fields have exclusivity deals for paint.

[CommonCold]

Damn, thats sad to hear. Not surprising though, in this day and age.

Last time I saw it/it was used against me, had to have been about 2017/18, at Southern Alabama Paintball. They were the only field anywhere close to me that stocked Nelson. I just diddnt like how it stained everything it touched. I have gear still stained after dozens of washes, that blue is still very visible.

[MrBarraclough]

Yep, that's my home field. I'll be out there tomorrow, in fact.

[uv_halo]

Nelson made my first three 100rd bags of paint (no doubt, repackaged by Skirmish the Store) I purchased in my first year. One or two of them were Nelson Stingers which, according to Henry Gilbert of Skirmish the Store, got their name from the fact that they had a thicker shell for penetrating brush, and happened to sting a bit more. One of them was also Red. I don't remember who made the paint I used for most of the 90s (in Northern California, England, Southern Virginia) until I was exposed to Marballizer (in Northern Virginia, around 2004).